


Under a cruel blue sky

by Fayet



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Gen, Male Friendship, if you want it you can read it as slash, missing moment, sadly not a fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 13:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3731278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fayet/pseuds/Fayet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the blood splatters on the glasses and the feed suddenly tumbles and comes to rest facing the blue sky and nothing else Merlin holds his breath. For a split second he thinks it's just a ruse. Agent Galahad is playing dead. He shouts into the microphone - essentially into a dead man's ear, he realizes later - and asks for an answer. Again, and again. </p><p>They say when you die your whole life flashes before your eyes. Sitting in England and looking straight into the barrel of Valentine's gun on his screen Merlin sees a life flash before his eyes. But the past he's revisiting is not Harry's, or his. It's theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under a cruel blue sky

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a fix-it, sadly. I wish it were, alas.. 
> 
> Very dark missing-scene-type. I wondered what Merlin felt watching the feed from Harry's glasses when Valentine shot him. Here's my take on it.

When the blood splatters on the glasses and the feed suddenly tumbles and comes to rest facing the blue sky and nothing else Merlin holds his breath. For a split second he thinks it's just a ruse. Agent Galahad is playing dead. He shouts into the microphone - essentially into a dead man's ear, he realizes later - and requests an answer. Again, and again. 

The images passing through Merlin's head in those short minutes are colourful. There's this rumour that before you die you see your own life flashing past your eyes. Merlin isn't sure if Harry saw his own life flashing past as he stared down the barrel of Valentines' inexpertly handled gun. But Merlin does, seeing things, though it's not Harry's life. It their's. 

It's two decades ago and he - not yet Merlin - is on the grounds of the Mansion for just a few days. He's a hopeful recruit, and he's scared shitless. Somehow he questiones how he ended up there. Sure, he hacked into the computer systems of Cambridge and manipulate the chemistry department's internal database to receive access to results attained by experiments on mice that turned into glowing blue monsters, but that was because stupid Cory from St. Catherine's didn't believe him and he had to show him. When there's a man in a perfect dark-blue double-breasted suit waiting for him outside the gates of Corpus Christi he knows he's fucked. 

Or not. Although doing military style recruitment feels a lot like being fucked, constantly, into the head. He's not athletic, has never been, and all the running and gun-toting seems a bit off the mark to him. It's mostly to his own surprise that he turns out to be the best shot in the group, with calm and steady hands that can handle a gun and take out a target that seems too far away for any chance to ever hit it. But he does, again and again, his breath caught in excitement. He's good at this, and baffles him beyond believe. 

It's on the shooting range that they meet for the first time. The recruits, three of them left, are given some time to try various guns. But the shooting range is open to everyone that day, and agents stroll in and out to work on their marksmanship. There's a red-haired woman on his left side, and she's so beautiful he doesn't even dare to handle a gun while she's in the room, hitting target after target bull's-eye, deeply lost in concentration. He's so fixated on her that he only realized that the stand to his right has been taken also.

It's the sound of the bullet hitting the target that almost makes him jump, and out of the corner of his eye he sees another young man reloading a semi-automatic. Tak tak tak tak tak tak is the sound of the bullets riddling the metal shield, and it isn't long until the practise target comes soaring towards them and he sees they've almost exclusively hit areas where a human being would rather not be hit. He's impressed and tries the same feat himself, but his own semi-automatic is tricky to handle and he's quite glad he isn't randomly shooting strangers on the street. 

The other agent - he's for sure an agent, he thinks, who else should be on the range? - watches his practise and smiles. He does his best to hide is frustration when all of his bullets are gone and he has to reload, and he doesn't even really know how it works on this gun. 

"Would you care for a word of advice?"

The voice is deep, calm and friendly. He puts down the gun and nods, only then realizing he hasn't introduced himself. He does, clumsily holding out a hand and not quite knowing where to look. 

The man is handsome, by all possible standards, and he can't be much older. Maybe a few years, and judging by his physique on the height of his physical powers, all lean muscles underneath expertly tailored clothing. His clothing only betrays superior taste for white shirts with perfectly ironed cuffs and starched collars, and he's wearing soft moccasins that look suspiciously expensive. 

"I'm one of the recruits, of course."

He says his name, and the other man smiles and shakes his hand. His handshake is firm and resolute, but not too bad. 

"Galahad. Or just Harry. See, the semi-automatic isn't as complicated as you make it out to be - simply use a bit more strength to influence the height, adjust as necessary, and expect some recoil of the gun. It's not quite a bonecrusher rifle, but close."

He nods, suddenly a bit confused, and fumbles with the magazine. It takes a short second and then the agent - Galahad, or Harry - holds out his hand. Thankfully he hands over gun and magazine and watches closely. It isn't as difficult as he thought, of course. Taking back the gun he follows the other's orders, adjusting his position as he is being told to do, and fires a few shots. 

The agent watches and nods, offering some more advice, and before he knows it he's receiving a veritable lesson. In the end his bullets hit the target, and stunned with his own success he only smiles stupidly when Galahad pats him on the back, wishes him luck with the remaining tests and wanders off. The target comes whizzing towards him, and the bullets are stuck in all the right places. 

They meet again three month later. He's agent Erec now, having shot his poor Labrador into it's tail and to the surprise of everybody including himself winning the open position. Agent Galahad is seated in the conference room, all business in pinstripes and another perfectly ironed shirt, and together they listen to the briefing. He's nervous, but that's probably got something to do with being tasked to blow-up a rather large building in central Serbia. 

It's only a week later when they are both cowering behind a small wall and he's fumbling with the magazine of his semi-automatic in the midst of a rain of bullets that he questions his decision to become an agent at all. But Galahad is relaxed in the middle of the apocalypse, and Erec finally shoves the magazine into the gun and readies himself to peek over the wall and gun down whatever target he can reach. There's a movement to his right and he realizes that Galahad is no longer holding his gun. 

"Are you a good bowler?"

Erec almost drops his gun. "Never played cricket." Has the man gone crazy? It's not the right moment to talk sports. But Galahad simply shrugs, and suddenly he's holding a handgrande that looks as if it's been already activated. 

"Then give me covering fire."

The order is hushed but urgent, and nothing gives a man more persuasive power than a handgranade already unplugged, so Erec jumps up and starts shooting whatever there is amongst the debris and sand and dust. He almost feels the movement next to him rather than seeing it, and then suddenly he's pulled down and thrown to the ground, another body covering his. 

When the thud of the heavy explosion dies off he's deaf for a minute. That doesn't safe him from being pulled up and pushed forwards, though, and all he can feel is his semi-automatic in one hand and a strong grasp on his other wrist. Galahad almost drags him through the building, somehow apparently remembering every single exit and stairwell, and then they are outside and their enemies are dead and they aren't. 

They sit in their hotel room later and he can still feel the explosion rattling his intestines. His ears are clogged, a shrill noise in one of them. His hands are shaking. They are waiting for a call from headquarters telling them about their route back home, and there's nothing they can do. 

Galahad is absolutely unfazed. Granted, he's been in the field for five years now, but how can a man be not shaking after having a hand grenade explode right next to them?

"How did you have a hand grenade, anyway? I don't recall them being allotted to us."

The man looks up from cleaning his gun and smiles. He's tanned after spending a week in the Serbian sun, and the rugged smile is open and honest - a quality not many Kingsman agents possess, as Erec learnt quickly. The thick layer of dust in his hair makes him even more approachable.

"Sometimes things happen to come up. It was quite useful, wasn't it? Just terribly unwieldy. They should make smaller ones."

Indeed they should, but that's not an explanation at all. Erec nods and blinks, and his confusion must be evident because Galahad smiles and wipes his hands off on the dirty cloth he's holding. 

"Snatched it off a dead target. You look like you need a stiff drink."

Still confused Erec nods again, and not even half and hour later he sits in a dark hole of a bar that's certainly not quite kosher, and he's holding a glass filled with clear water that turns out to be vile vodka. He coughs every time he takes a sip, but it helps against the explosion in his bones and his colleagues' smug grin. 

It's five weeks later that Erec is introduced to the agent called Merlin for the first time. There's a man sitting in the intestines of the Mansion, and he's got nothing but four screens with gigantic bodies and a keyboard he's typing into. There's something called the Internet, and it's huge and coming. Erec spends the next three days next to Merlin and watches and listens and learns. 

It takes two gunshots to his right shoulder and the announcement that Merlin wants to retire for Erec to swear off field work forever. He's wrestling with himself over the decision for a few days, but then he's in South Korea and there's hell on the country's doorstep, and the trenches make his stomach churn. 

He returns to the Mansion, hands in his resignation and applies for the now free post of Merlin. They want evidence of what he's capable of, so he tucks an entire handgranade into a zippo lightener in one nights' work, blows up a few patches of beautifully groomed English grass and then manipulates Heathrow airport by hacking the systems so that England is shut off from the whole world for a night. Impressed Arthur shakes his hand, and there's a cheeky grin on a certain agents' face. 

"Congratulations, Merlin. And good work on the zippo. I'm looking forward to see more of that."

He grins and nods, careful not to extend a hand once more as his shoulder is still giving him hell. Galahad is recovering from being shot, too, and they had to replace a part of his calf muscle with another kind of muscle that the man claims comes straight from a fully grown bull. Merlin doesn't quite believe him, but there's not much one can do when Galahad wants a certain story to be recognized as the one universal truth. 

Whatever has been done to his calf the man can hardly work, and he's bored beyond belief. So he stakes a claim to a chair in Merlin's new lab and spends hours asking pointless and idiotic questions. He isn't dumb - being an Oxford man and all - but his curiosity is driving Merlin up the wall and across the ceiling. But he's got ideas, and together they come up with quite a few insane schemes that somehow always tend to work out. 

From a few afternoons spent in Merlin's lab they establish something Merlin tentatively starts to call friendship after a few month. Galahad is well and out in the field again, but whenever he comes back he has some insane idea for a new gadget and more and more only slightly unrealistic stories to tell. 

They have a certain routine these days. Merlin as the keeper of the database knows everything about every single agents' route. He's informed when Galahad comes back from a mission, and quietly prepares - which mostly means shuffling work so the evening will be free, and arranging for a few bottles of good wine to be in stock. 

After debriefing Galahad crashes Merlin's lab, notwithstanding time and hour of the day or the state of his person, and they sit and talk and annoy each other. 

Some of their best ideas develop like this. The livefeed, for example. It started innocently as always - Galahad complains about being stuck in the desert for five days, Merlin points out a few smart solutions that could have helped him out of that mess, and Galahad slumps back in his chair and stretches his long legs, yawning. 

"Alas, Merlin, if you were tiny and sitting in my ear all the time! But you're not, so stop being a smartass."

Merlin grins and nods, and the same night comes up with the idea of inventing the position of a handler. Arthur is exasperated but finally signs both of them off, and on his next mission Galahad wears the tiniest earpiece Merlin could build, tied to their headquarters via a constant satellite connection. It costs a fortune and saves the life of Galahad and the hostage he was sent to free. 

They continue to develop their idea further, and it only takes a year and a lot of technical progress to finally sort out a system that allows a handler located at the Mansion to guide a field agent through a particular situation. The connection becomes more stable, the earpiece smaller, until Merlin one day sees Percival complain about his glasses and suddenly has a vision. 

As always Galahad plays along, considering himself to look more intellectual with glasses anyway, and step by step Merlin advances the Kingsman gadgets well beyond the realm of possibility. There's always some fine tuning, adjusting small things here and there, but in the end the glasses work, too. Merlin earns the nickname 'wizard' and wears it like a badge of honour. 

That's the work part. But there's more, of course. Friendship, if it deserves the name, is not reserved to work. Kingsman agents do not have any kind of social life outside the agency. There's too much at stake and too many secrets. In their heart they are all solitary men, and it's just fine for most of them. 

Some strike up friendships amongst their own ranks to combat their loneliness. Percival and Lancelot are almost an item, and sometimes Merlin is jealous. He's got his screens, of course, and a rather empty flat in SoHo. But there's not much beyond that. 

Until Galahad shows up in his lab one day. He's back from a rather ghastly mission in the jungle of Bolivia, and Merlin was live on air when he shot his way through an entire pack of en gros drug dealers, making use of more than one zippo along the way. There was quite a bit of blood involved, if one could trust Galahad's reports (one never should, though.). 

Now the man is looking tired albeit scrubbed clean. He's out of his work-suit and in what Merlin had come to know his casual clothing - shirt and slacks, nothing too leant back, of course. 

He hands back some gadgets and comments on their effectiveness, and then is almost out of the door again. 

"As I said, thanks for the feed. It was very useful. In any case, I'll take a night off and lighten up the mood with some relaxed stuff that does not entail a jungle. I never want to see a snake again."

Merlin smiles and nods, and leans back a bit. 

"Oh yes, I can image. Though it wasn't my idea to - nevermind. I could do with a night off, too, so - enjoy it."

Galahad stands in the door, tilting his head just the tiniest bit, visibly thinking for a minute. He shrugs. 

"Then why don't you grant me the privilege of your company?"

He almost falls off his chair. They never associated outside the Mansion, as long as it wasn't for a mission. Taken by surprise it takes him a minute too long to answer. 

"Come, there's small basement club in Shoreditch. It's surprisingly nice, considering the area. Some new jazz, someone at the piano, nothing too special. A good selection of gin."

Merlin blinks, twice, and then - for whatever reason - finds himself slowly nodding. Galahad grins and approves, and two hours later they sit in a dark basement and listen to a woman with a voice like two packs Lucky Strike-per-day sing about love and death. Galahad - Harry - is right. The gin's good, there's not a single snake in sight, and the talk makes everything easier. 

Afterwards Merlin is confused. He always thought he wasn't a sociable man. That he's just not good at these things. That life just doesn't have that for him, and that it's fine. He's the genius, right? The techwizard. The freak. 

But Harry Hart apparently thinks differently, and before Merlin knows it they are real, proper, call-me-tonight-friends. He isn't quite used to that, but he just follows Harry's lead, and it works - though sometimes he sits in his darkened lab staring at the screen and wonders how that happened. 

How he's suddenly doing these things that other people always did. Having dinner with a friend. Going out to the pub with a friend. Stopping his friend - mate, wasn't that how people called their friends? - stopping his mate from beating up a batch of rowdy drunken beer-guts at a pub just because they called Merlin a fag. Running away from the police called on site after his mate finished off the last one of their attackers and has to be persuaded to not break the unfortunate assholes' neck while he's at it.

He doesn't know how that happened. That there's suddenly someone who wants to beat up other people because they hurl insults at Merlin. Especially since Merlin, with ten years of krav maga under his belt, could do it, too - he just doesn't see the point. Harry does, thought, and apparently Merlin suddenly has an honour that needs to be defended. 

Merlin is surprised, and amazed, and comes up with a bullet-proof umbrella as a gag gift for Galahad's birthday. The hug he receives is almost bone-crushing, and suddenly Galahad is the coolest Kingsman of them all. Lancelot is almost green with envy. 

They do things, and talk over meals, and start to always buy two theater tickets. Slowly time passes and Merlin doesn't remember if it has been any other way. Their friendship is perfectly balanced. Galahad goes out into the field and kicks ass and throws zippos, and Merlin is the constant voice in his ear and provides wisdom, safety-routes and sarcastic commentary.

But things don't always go according to plan, and that's what Merlin is suddenly responsible for, too. He's the one who's there when the plane carrying the remaining three agents coming back from Afghanistan taxis into the hangar. He's the one who insists in going with Galahad to bring the bad news to the Unwin family, who waits in the car and later refills the whiskey glass. He's patient and there, and it's all he can do and exactly what he has to do. 

They toast with a good whiskey to the dead man who saved the other's life, and then Merlin listens to the enraged rant, listens to Harry Hart yell at the universe and curse and cuss in at least five languages, and nods and drinks and is secretly thankful that the young man - that it wasn't Harry. That Harry is still there, yelling and kicking, desperate but still alive.

They move on. There are new agents and their dinner meetings sometimes evolve into group nights. But in the end it's always just the two of them. They have small habits and rituals. They have coffee together while being miles apart, with Harry playing the lonely gentleman and Merlin whispering into his ear from the other end of the world. It's their secret joke. The lonely man who isn't lonely at all.

One day they have dinner in London in a small Indian restaurant, and when they clink glasses with their Lassi Harry suddenly smiles. 

"It's strange to actually see you while you're talking. I'm used to having an invisible friend, with your voice in my ear as my constant companion."

Merlin grins and puts his glass down. 

"Would you rather I go around the corner and whisper some helpful remarks about the menu?"

Shaking his head Harry flips the plastic covered card around. 

"Please don't. Sometimes I start to confuse my thoughts with your orders, which is the most unsettling thing I've yet encountered."

It's a bait too tempting for Merlin to avoid.

"At least you're sometimes enjoying intelligent thoughts that way."

Harry frowns and openes his mouth to answer - but there's the waitress and they order and Harry starts to talk about a play at the National Theatre he wants to see and they set off to discuss Shakespeare and what pub to go to afterwards. 

Twenty years of friendship are a very long time. Still when Valentine's bullet finds it's target the images that flash in front of Merlin's eyes need only a few seconds to show him everything. There's Galahad in that Serbian hotel room, Galahad in a damn dessert somewhere east of Cairo, Galahad welcoming him back when the plane from South Korea arrives. Galahad sitting next to his bed in the infirmary, helping him to fix his bandaged shoulder into the cast. Galahad on the shooting range and in the meeting room, disturbing Merlin in his private sanctuary of a lab. Galahad requesting something, make this possible, perform a technical miracle here. Galahad bringing back a gadget, complaining about a malfunction, boasting about his success. His voice over the earpiece - Merlin, where to now? Merlin, is there a door? Merlin, how deep is the fall from this window? Merlin, shall I do that? Merlin, target down, I repeat, target down. Merlin, when's the plane coming? I need chicken masala tonight, and don't try to make an excuse. 

And then there's Harry, too. Harry in a pub, threatening death on a pair of assholes. Harry in a jazz club, lost in the music. At a cricket game, cheering on a club he doesn't even like. On a soccer field, shouting for Merlin to get the goddamn ball. Sitting next to him in a plane, grinning at a difficult flight trick and complimenting Merlin's skills as a pilot. Harry by his side strolling through London, hands in the pockets of his grey or blue suit, telling a story or a dirty joke. Harry staring at a menu he can't read because his Chinese is poor and Merlin giggles because he's fluent and picked the restaurant to mess with his friend. Harry sitting in Merlin's almost empty living room and complimenting the wall colour, because there's literally nothing else to compliment and Harry Hart is a damn gentleman. 

Starting at his screen in the lab Merlin sits unmoving. He shouts into the microphone once more, calling agent Galahad, waiting for the answer, the soft voice, hurt but unbroken, the words he wants to hear: Merlin, when's the plane coming? Get me home. 

He sits and waits, and waits, and all he sees is the blue sky on his screen, white clouds floating across an entirely empty yet brutally bright canvas. There is no heaven. The edges of his view are sprinkled with red. 

It takes almost an hour before he turns off the screen. There is no one to listen to his voice anymore, and so he simply turns his whole equipment off, shutting down one server after the other, listening to the whispering noise of technology die slowly, until there is nothing left but silence and darkness. Then he remains unmoving at his desk, waiting for the soft white clouds still crawling across his mind to finally vanish into the pitch black void around him. But they never do.


End file.
